Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/418

404 Spain now turned their anger against England. They recalled their plenipotentiaries from the congress of Cambray, which was still sitting, and professed their readiness to abandon all their hostility to the emperor of Germany, to concede all that they had so long demanded from him, on condition that he entered into a close alliance with him against France and England. They sent off back to France the widow of the late Don Louis, and also Mademoiselle Beaujolais, another daughter of the late regent Orleans, who had been contracted to Don Carlos.

The emperor of Germany was delighted at the Spanish offer. He had always felt himself aggrieved by the conditions of the quadruple alliance. He was afraid of France, and hated George of England for his German policy. He had, moreover, embroiled himself with both England and Holland, by establishing at Ostend an East India Company, which was declared to be in violation of the treaty of Westphalia, and was, at all events, regarded with particular jealousy by both England and Holland. This being the case, Ripperda, the envoy of Spain, a Dutch adventurer, who had been the tool of Alberoni, completed with ease a treaty with the emperor at Vienna, which was signed on the 30th of April, 1725.

By this treaty almost everything was given up which had kept Spain and Austria in war and conflict for many years, and by themselves and their allies had steeped Europe in blood. The king of Spain agreed to sanction the Ostend Company, to yield the long-contested point regarding the exclusive mastership of the Golden Fleece. He surrendered the right to garrison with Spanish troops the fortresses of Tuscany. He acknowledged the emperor's right to Naples, Sicily, the Milanese, and Netherlands, and guaranteed what was termed the Pragmatic Sanction, that is, the succession of the hereditary states of Austria in the female line. This was a concession of immense importance to the emperor, who had only daughters, and whose claim to the Flemish and Italian dominions might thus have been contested by Philip on the emperor's death. Thus, before the emotions of a family quarrel, fell at once all the mighty questions which had rent and desolated Europe for a quarter of a century!" Both the sovereigns engaged to afford mutual support should either be attacked. Charles agreed to bring into the field twenty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, Philip twenty thousand troops and fifteen ships of war.

The world looked on in astonishment; diplomatists in dread of more secret and momentous compacts, and that not without cause. In the heat of this hastily formed alliance, it was proposed to marry the young archduchess, the heiress of the Austrian states, to one of the infants of Spain—a contract, if carried out, which would probably have overthrown all that had been done at such cost of life and wealth for the establishment of the balance of power. This dangerous project was frustrated by other events, but serious engagements were entered into for compelling England to surrender Gibraltar and Minorca to Spain, and for placing the pretender on the throne of Great Britain. The new allies sought to strengthen themselves by a coalition with Russia. Peter, the czar, was dead, but the czarina, Catherine, who possessed his throne, displayed a spirit nearly as masculine, and carried out all his plans with a high hand. She had married her daughter to the duke of Holstein, whose duchy of Schleswick, George's ally, the king of Denmark, had formally reft from him. She declared herself ready to assert her son-in-law's rights, and thus implicate the king of Hanover in the defence of Denmark, provided she was supplied with money. Large sums were accordingly shipped from Spain to Petersburg, and still larger to Vienna; the latter capital, it is said, not less than one million three hundred thousand pistoles in fourteen months.

But during these transactions France and England had not been idle.

A new alliance had been signed at Hanover betwixt England, France, and Prussia, to which soon after were added Denmark and Holland. The real objects of this treaty were to counterbalance that betwixt Spain, Austria, and Russia, to compel the dissolution of the Ostend Company, and to prevent the menaced assistance to the pretender. This was the celebrated treaty of Hanover, which was regarded from such opposite points by the English and the Germans. In England it was long and vehemently charged on the government as a treaty made entirely for the defence and benefit of Hanover. Its very name, lord Chatham said, declared its nature, and lord Chesterfield remarks, "Thus rode Hanover triumphant on the shoulders of England!" On the other hand, the Hanoverians were as loudly declaring that it was a treaty for defending England at the expense of their country. There was about as much truth and falsehood in one statement as the other. That it was to defend England was palpable enough when Spain was haughtily demanding the surrender of Gibraltar, and Spain and Austria were avowing their intention of supporting the pretender. Yet in all this Hanover had no concern. There was no demand on her for these objects. On the other hand, the treaty was meant to defend the frontiers of Hanover from the aggressions of Russia, and in such a crisis England would probably have had to furnish aid. Still Hanover had no cause to complain, and England had as much promise of assistance from the allies as fairly counterbalanced any probable demands upon her from Hanover.

These important affairs detained the king abroad till the middle of winter, and it was not till New Year's day of 1726 that he embarked for Harwich. The weather at sea became very tempestuous, the king's yacht was separated from her convoy, and it was not till he had been tossing about a couple of days that he landed at Rye, on the coast of Sussex. The weather on land was, if possible, worse than at sea; and the snow was so deep that he did not reach St. James's till the 9th of January.

The confederacy of Spain, Austria, and Sweden against England, greatly encouraged the pretender and his party. His agents were active in almost every coast in Europe, under the able direction of Atterbury. Mar had continued as weak and vacillating in James's affairs on the continent as he had shown himself in Scotland. Falling into the hands of the English in 1719, through the intervention of the Swiss government, by whom he was arrested at Geneva, he had made great submission to the king, and was let off with a small pension out of his Scotch estates. He then